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Shortbread has to be one of my favourite holiday cookies, I mean it is so easy to make and that melt in your mouth buttery goodness is almost impossible to resist! Although plain shortbread is amazing you can fill it with pretty much anything from simple to gourmet and from sweet to savoury even. Taking a queue from my candied orange peel shortbread I had been wanting to try a festive version with bright red maraschino cherries, though instead of coating them with chocolate this time I was going to add the chocolate to the cookies along with the cherries. I was however a little torn between whether to use white or dark chocolate as white chocolate seemed more festive but dark chocolate goes so well with cherries. In the end the easiest solution was to make a batch of both and besides you can't have too much shortbread.

The chocolate and maraschino cherry shortbread cookies did not disappoint! I was quite pleased at how the red from the cherries swirled into the cookie dough and both the white and dark chocolate versions turned out amazingly well!

Anonymous: Shortbread retains it shape well when baked so if you put it in ball shaped it will come out mostly ball shaped. That is not necessarily bad and I like shortbread snowballs, ball shaped shortbread dusted in powdered sugar.

Hi Kevin You have really done it all my favorites things together in these cookies. I am going shopping and these will go in my Shristmas baskets for my friends along with the bacon jam and a few others of yours and bottled cookie mixes of mine. God bless you and yoursand have a wonderful CHRISTmas season, Linzi

Hi Kevin,Do these cookies call for candied cherries or the kind from the jar with the syrup drained? I see some cherries in the background but I can't tell from the final product what kind are actually used. Thank you!

I made these last night and used my cookie scoop instead of cutting them. I flattened the balls with the bottom of a glass dipped in powdered sugar so that they wouldn't stick to it. I'm bringing a bag of them to my hair stylist today as a Christmas gift.

I made them and they are good. However, I used dark chocolate chips (Nestle), I would coarsely chop them. They were too big so when I sliced the cookies they started to fall apart. They also took closer to 20 minutes to cook.

Kevin - could you add 1 hour to the total prep time? I didn't realize it until I had them mixed and didn't take into account the 1 hour fridge time. Thanks for the recipe!

Anonymous: I am glad that you enjoyed them! When I cut them I generally get a few chips coming out but the hold together. Chopping the chips would definitely help with this but you would not have those large chunks of chocolate. How thick did you cut your cookies? Good catch, I have updated the time to include the chill time.

Ok, must tell you. Every time now, without fail, when I click on an image for a recipe that appeals to me, it has been one of yours! Seriously, every time. You sure know how to rock a closet-sized kitchen. Keep 'em coming :)

Anonymous: Try not to get too much of the maraschino cherry liquid into the batter and mix as little as possible when mixing in the cherries. I get little pink streaks in mine but the whole cookies do not normally turn pink. Enjoy the cookies!

I made them round shaped and rectangle shaped. They looked so pretty in my daughter's cookie gift bags for her teachers. I also just plopped a spoonfull of soft dough onto the pan and baked it. It came out really pretty and swirly. My first batch came out really pretty pink. My second batch I drained the cherries while I mixed the dough then I chopped them up, sopped up the juice with a paper towel and the pink was more swirled than fully throughout. They were still beautiful. And shortbread is supposed to be "dry" if I recall. Everyone loved them.

Thank you so much for this recipe! I made them twice and served them to people who loved them! The first time I thought that the cherry flavor was a bit weak, but the second time I accidentally bought a cheaper store-brand of cherries (probably with a hit of artificial flavor) and they were better!

I have the dough chilling in the fridge right now and it looks pretty good. The only thing i would change is instead of using maraschino cherries i would use candied cherries as the dough is stained red a bit due to the juices leaking from the maraschino cherries. (its not a pretty red)

Made these today for Valentines. Shaped the dough so when I sliced the cookies they were in the shape of a heart. The cherries did "bleed" into my dough a bit, but it made them even more festive. I would have never thought about putting maraschino cherries into cookies--great idea!

To cut back on how juicy the cherries are chop, measure,spread on paper towel to drain a few minutes, and then spread on wax paper and freeze until ready to mix into the recipe. Use a tray lined with wax paper and spread out evenly so that cherries don't clump together. This works for any juicy fruit that needs to be mixed with dough or bread.

Okay, so I made these the other day because they just look too delicious not to, right? Anyway... I did come across a few mishaps while making them. The first, my cookies came out pink. I wonder if I were to rinse them thoroughly or if I were to freeze much like "Annonymous" stated above, then that would not happen? Also - my cookies crumbled. I don't know why. I followed the recipe accordingly (except I put chocolate chips because I had them on hand). I kept adjusting the size of my cuts then to see if making them skinnier or thicker would help with that problem, but each time I cut, and came across the chocolate chips, my cookie would crumble. It was devistating. I just sat there re-molding them into circles.

I didn't know if there was something I was missing? Like a need-to-know fact about cutting shortbread?

They were delicious though and my entire family gobbled them up. And despite them being pink, they were still beautiful. I am definitely going to try these again, but try the different thing with the cherry and hopefully figure out how to cut shortbread.

sammijean: I am glad that you enjoyed the cookies and I am sorry to hear that you had problems cutting them with the chocolate chips. I try to get the dough as chilled as possible and then I use my sharpest knife which cuts through the chips nicely. I do sometimes get chips that are on the edge pop out rather than be cut but since they are on the edge it is easy to push them back onto the cookies.

Anonymous: I normally store them at room temperature but I usually finish them within a week or two. Maraschino cherries have a lot of sugar and salt in them which acts as a preservative. If you plan on making them further ahead or if you want to be on the safe side you can store them in the fridge or freezer.

I am using dried cherries instead of maraschino. I understand shortbread dough is fairly dry. I can form a ball in my hand and it stays formed. But for the life of me I cannot get a log/roll formed and I am using parchment. What is the trick?

Harriet Klinklemeyer: I actually just pulled a batch of these out of the oven 10 minutes ago! You have to be gentle with the dough, forming it into the log more with your hands than by rolling it. Once you get it to form a log, when you slice it the knife going through the chocolate chips may cause some of the cookies to crumble and you can just reform any that break into a new log and slice them again. Enjoy!

I made your lime meltaways first and they've turned out great! My issue with this particular recipe is that my first batch of dough was reaallyy sticky. I notice that this recipe didn't call for corn starch, so I added it to my second batch and didn't have any trouble.

Ginny: This recipe should work without the cornstarch, did your cherries have a lot of excess liquid on them? As a shortbread this recipe could easily see some of the flour being replaced by cornstarch.

Oh my goodness I made them today and they are soo good! I made them to give to my co-workers but I kinda wanna keep them to myself! >:) I do wish that i used mini chocolate chips so there was less crumbledge when I cut them though!

I was looking for a "grown-up" cookie to give as Valentine's for my sons' teachers along with a Starbucks gift card. I made half a batch last night as a test. I have never made shortbread and don't really recall eating any shortbread, so I wanted to pretest the cookies. OMG! They are so wonderful! Just what I was looking for. Elegant with a beautiful flavor. My husband complained that there wasn't enough cherries but that was my fault as when I went to make them I only had 5 cherries left. Lol

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About Me

I came to realize that my meals were boring and that I had been eating the same few dishes over and over again for years. It was time for a change! I now spend my free time searching for, creating and trying tasty new recipes in my closet sized kitchen.